John Thompson: Did Duncan Load the Bullets into Michelle Rhee's Smoking Gun?
Guest post by John Thompson.
The current headline is that John Merrow found "the smoking gun," or the confidential memo warning Michelle Rhee of the extent of cheating that may have occurred in Washington D.C. schools in response to her draconian "reforms." Merrow's "Michelle Rhee's Reign of Error" summarizes the evidence of an inexcusable failure to investigate the cheating and it recalls the lesson of Watergate - the cover-up is often worse than the original crime. Merrow concludes with the question, "What did Michelle know, and when did she know it?"
Merrow's report leads to the question of "What did Arne Duncan know and when did he know it?" After all, Duncan and Rhee have earned the title of "the king and queen of data-driven education reform."
The District of Columbia's policies were not only due to the kindness of billionaires and their $65 million contribution to Rhee's test-driven evaluation system. Rhee's toxicity also was enabled by Duncan's $75 million Race to the Top (RTTT) grant, and its requirements that bubble-in testing be used to punish schools and individuals. In fact, the announcement that D.C. had won a RTTT grant was coordinated with a last-minute effort by Duncan to save Rhee's job as chancellor.
We should remember the closing days of Mayor Adrian Fenty's unsuccessful reelection campaign. The primary had become a referendum on Rhee's "reforms." As Duncan's department awarded RTTT funding, he praised the Fenty-Rhee education record as "absolutely extraordinary." The Washington Post's Bill Turque reported, "if any doubt remained about where the Obama Administration's sympathies are in the District primary, they were eliminated at a morning photo op that preceded the official RTTT announcement." Duncan's announcement of the grant on the eve of the election had "the unmistakable feel of a Fenty campaign stop," as Duncan joined the embattled mayor and his controversial chancellor in a walk with children wearing Fenty campaign stickers.
The current headline is that John Merrow found "the smoking gun," or the confidential memo warning Michelle Rhee of the extent of cheating that may have occurred in Washington D.C. schools in response to her draconian "reforms." Merrow's "Michelle Rhee's Reign of Error" summarizes the evidence of an inexcusable failure to investigate the cheating and it recalls the lesson of Watergate - the cover-up is often worse than the original crime. Merrow concludes with the question, "What did Michelle know, and when did she know it?"
Merrow's report leads to the question of "What did Arne Duncan know and when did he know it?" After all, Duncan and Rhee have earned the title of "the king and queen of data-driven education reform."
The District of Columbia's policies were not only due to the kindness of billionaires and their $65 million contribution to Rhee's test-driven evaluation system. Rhee's toxicity also was enabled by Duncan's $75 million Race to the Top (RTTT) grant, and its requirements that bubble-in testing be used to punish schools and individuals. In fact, the announcement that D.C. had won a RTTT grant was coordinated with a last-minute effort by Duncan to save Rhee's job as chancellor.
We should remember the closing days of Mayor Adrian Fenty's unsuccessful reelection campaign. The primary had become a referendum on Rhee's "reforms." As Duncan's department awarded RTTT funding, he praised the Fenty-Rhee education record as "absolutely extraordinary." The Washington Post's Bill Turque reported, "if any doubt remained about where the Obama Administration's sympathies are in the District primary, they were eliminated at a morning photo op that preceded the official RTTT announcement." Duncan's announcement of the grant on the eve of the election had "the unmistakable feel of a Fenty campaign stop," as Duncan joined the embattled mayor and his controversial chancellor in a walk with children wearing Fenty campaign stickers. 
